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17 August 2016 - The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has announced its intention to allow the IANA Functions Contract to expire,representing the final step in an 18 year process to transition the Internet’s domain name system (DNS) to the private sector. The NTIA currently contracts ICANN to perform the IANA functions.

On Friday, ICANN informed NTIA that it has completed or will complete all the necessary tasks called for in the transition proposal by the end of the contract term. Based on its review of this report and barring any significant impediment, NTIA intends to allow the IANA functions contract to expire as of 1 October 2016.

Over the last two years Internet stakeholder groups from around the world came together to formulate a comprehensive plan to transition the US Government out of its historical oversight role. AFRINIC community representatives and staff, together with the other four RIRs, worked tirelessly as part of the Numbers community to contribute to the plan to ensure that the Internet remains open, stable, resilient and secure. You can read about the work of the Consolidated RIR IANA Stewardship Proposal Team's (CRISP) work here.

AFRINIC fully supports the IANA Stewardship Transition and would like to thank all of those who have contributed their time over the last two years.

16 August 2016 - The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has announced that its 16-bit Autonomous System Number (ASN) pool has now been exhausted. Future allocations to the five Regional Internet Registries will be made from the IANA's 32-bit pool.

AFRINIC assigns all AS Numbers from its 32-bit ASN pool. It has a small supply of 16-bit ASNs available and, due to the incompatibility of some equipment with the higher bit order 32-bit ASNs, it may allow, on a case-by-case basis, members to swap higher bit ASNs with lower bit order 32-bit ASNs.

However, AFRINIC strongly encourages members to check for 32-bit ASN functionality before purchasing new equipment, and to upgrade current non-compliant equipment in order to support the 32-bit ASN standard so that they can connect to customers as well as connect with their upstream providers.